Nepali media sector has increasingly managed to prove its worth for quite a while now. Not just the print publications, and broadcasts, in English and Nepali, movies seem to be growing as a big draw for audiences too. More than ever, the people are getting interested to join the media as VJs, RJs, journalists and actors. This is a very big leap in a society where the media was never a viable and well-looked-upon area of work before.


With its increasing strength, the media also has become a strong influence to people. Starting from a few home TV channels and news publications, today the industry has bloomed to a good number of both. With an increase in number of options available to the people, a clear line for competency is visible. But the most disturbing trend easily noticed is the profanity and the obscenity in the content of these.


Walking across any road, one can easily spot different posters of various movies all over. Generally portraying semi-clad women or a couple engaged in indecent activities, the posters do hurt the sentiments of a majority of people. Our society has always been a very conservative one. Taking that into consideration, we cannot forget how many people still are not as open like the rest. This starts bringing conflicts in itself when a person’s socialization and upbringing clashes with what happens around him. Moreover, he starts believing what he sees to be correct. That’s for one thing how we lose our traditionally held beliefs and ways of life.


This inclination to sacrilege can be proved also by the different weekly publications. The censor board amazingly never seems to censor such images not fit for family newspapers. Such images are always a censor in many of the world’s countries, including the western ones, which we so happily idolize. Not all families are open, most still hold a traditional view. Even when subtle references are made about sex or similar topics, people flinch to talk about in front of their family members. Also, this way young people get negative impressions about such ideas. Many feminist activists talk about women being just objects for men to play with and such images hold a similar notion in their minds. It is worthwhile to imagine the mental status when children brought up in such environments grow up.


Recent movies in the country stifled the box office. Interestingly, these movies were different from what we usually perceive of the typical Nepali movies. These movies just had another element spicing up the story. It was again based on elements always considered as a taboo in our society, sexual stories to be precise. The audience review of these movies was always favorable even when learned critics rejected the movie for being of little moral value. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that the media shows what the mass wants to see, and these newspapers print what the people want to read.


Today’s generation is very much fast forward. It is not entirely bad to see sex as the prime issue, especially when the mass is fine with it. The main concern here is that there are so many other areas where the film makers and publishers could use their credibility. For a change, new concepts, ideas, technology and stories presented differently could be of equal competence. Therefore, we should look further ahead instead of halting at areas which others have already twaddled through. We have to diversify our horizons mentally and psychologically, not just talk of such things as big deal for they gobble up all our creativity. It wouldn’t be fair to scapegoat anybody; the best is to change what we want to see, hear and read.